EBMT-EHA CAR-T 2019 | The importance of EBMT-EHA in European CAR T-cell therapy
Nicolaus Kröger, MD University Medical Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany, discusses the importance of the EBMT-EHA CAR T-call 2019 meeting in the rolling out of CAR T-cell therapy across the EU at the 1st European CAR T-Cell Meeting, held in Paris, France, co-organized by the European Society for Blood & Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) and the European Hematology Association (EHA).
Transcript (edited for clarity)
This is a very exciting time for us because the CAR T-cells are something new in the field. So two products have been approved by the EMA last year and now everybody is interested to use this CD19 CARs. But this is a very interesting meeting. So because it’s entering the field in Europe a bit late...
This is a very exciting time for us because the CAR T-cells are something new in the field. So two products have been approved by the EMA last year and now everybody is interested to use this CD19 CARs. But this is a very interesting meeting. So because it’s entering the field in Europe a bit late. So in China and the US they are working much more than in Europe. So we thought we should combine our European efforts. This is the reason why we combined this meeting. From our society, which is the European Society for blood and marrow transplantation with a European Hematology Association, EHA. And this was a nice effort because you should consider, we thought about this last December, so the time was very short, and as you can see here, this is a highly appreciated meeting by the attendees.
So we have more than 600 attendings. So we had to close the registration. We had more than 300 on the waiting list. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get them access to. So we have live stream so they can participate at least from their computer on the web nets. So it shows how important this new kind of treatment is for our patients and for the medical community.
And EBMT is working for many years in this kind of field because you may know that EBMT is mainly focusing on stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy. So we built up a registry about 40 years ago to collecting all the transplant data in Europe and we’re covering about 80 to 90% of all transplant in Europe. So therefore the interest, especially from the health authority and from the EMA is very high to use this registry also to follow up CAR T-cells patients because this is a genetically modified product.
So these patients have to be monitored 15 years, according the law, for potential side effects. And therefore EBMT is applying for the called positive opinion to get this positive opinion from the EMA for the registry. And it would be very nice. And we tried to include all the corporate groups in Europe as well as the pharmaceutical industry, the HTAs, the payers, to get access to this registry because these are our stakeholders. So at the end, we can have a benefit for all of our patients.”
Read more...
